Customer Service: How to Approach the Expectations of New Customers

Customers are increasingly savvy when it comes to making purchases, and increasingly demanding when it comes to customer service. With the abundance of choice available to modern consumers, it's more difficult than it's ever been to attract new buyers, and turn them into loyal long-time customers. Meeting expectations no longer means that customers are automatically satisfied; when a customer calls a service centre, they already have the expectation that their problem will be solved, which means that solving the problem doesn't guarantee repeat business. In this kind of context, what customer services skills are needed to encourage customer loyalty?

Consider your Customers

Understanding who your customers are is crucial, and thanks to the massive technological change of the past two decades, the average customer is virtually a different species compared to twenty years ago. Millennial customers who call an internet provider service centre, for example, are these days likely to know just as much as the call centre agent about their problem, and they tend to become frustrated when asked to perform routine troubleshooting tasks. And in general, younger customers are more likely to spend time performing basic research before calling a service centre, and they have the expectation that the agent they talk to will have a much higher level of familiarity with the product, and be able to quickly and competently solve whatever problem they have. All in all, the requirement for intensive customer service training is high.

What do Customers Want?

While technology has changed, and the concept of customer loyalty has changed, what customers actually want from service performance is surprisingly constant.

Seamless service: customers have always become frustrated when transferred multiple times in a single call, especially when they have to repeat their problem over and over again to each new agent. These days, however, customers expect that the person they first talk to is the one who will coordinate and solve their problem.

Attentive service: customers want to be dealt with quickly, politely, and respectfully, even if they themselves become frustrated and difficult. The nature of customer service is and has always been about making each customer feel that there's nothing more important than their particular problem.

Service that engenders trust: customers want to feel that the agent they speak to is capable of handling their problem, and by extension that the company is capable and trustworthy. They expect that their problem will be solved without errors or delays, and they expect that if a particular solution is promised, it will be provided.